SmarterFitter Daily

Ideal Saturday morning.

Tim was here for a visit and knowing how much he likes my Indian, I kicked out all the old favourites. The red lentil dal is always a hit. The cabbage salad is basically this Indian Cucumber and Coconut Salad but with cabbage and carrots for the veggies. Seriously the perfect meal after a long week of many meals out and numerous cheese plates.

Recipes:

• Red Lentil Dal with Panch Phoran
• Indian Cucumber and Coconut Salad
• The Art of Chapattis

Just when I was feeling in a food rut, this came along and rocked my world. 

Recipes:

Yellow Pea Dahl
The Art of Chapattis

This was bomb!! A combination of leftovers that were truly more than the sum of their parts:

The base was this Red Lentil Soup which is awesome on it's own. I added frozen spinach and leftover roast carrot and parsnip. THIS is how I will enjoy parsnip from now on - parsnip is a veg I often find too sweet at the best of times. But the spinach and lentils really mellowed them out. That and a good squeeze of lemon and solid dose of cayenne.

And yes, this was breakfast. Not sure if I'll ever go back to porridge or Bircher muesli after this. So much more satisfying and less cloyingly sweet or filling. Love.

Adapted from this simple dal recipe, using chana dal (split chickpeas) instead of lentils and a couple whole fresh tomatoes instead of tinned tomatoes. I also blended up some of the chickpeas after they cooked to make a sort of gravy.

Topped with rocket and avocado. Kind of like a frittata pizza.

Side note: I'm digging the combination of feta and avocado lately. That is all.

Savoury breakfast. But where are the idliis?

Just about done with the leftovers from Saturday's Indian Feast.

Breakfast: Bircher muesli for the win. Made with oats, flax seeds, dried sour cherries, and raisins. Topped with banana, toasted pecans and yogurt. Served with coffee brewed from fresh home-roasted coffee beans.

Lunch: Salad nicoise with egg, tuna, anchovies, fresh basil, sundried tomatoes, hot read chillies, sugar snap peas, red onion, little gem lettuce, balsamic vinaigrette, salt and pepper. I think this is the last of my traditional, tuna-based salad nicoises. I feel somewhat skeptical about tinned tuna, even the so-called "sustainable" varieties. 

Snack: Apple and a cup of decaf tea. Laster a few nibbles of farinata to get me through a work assignment without being distracted by hunger.

Dinner: Tofu scramble with a side of perpetual spinach from the garden, sourdough toast and avocado. The scramble comprised one of my favourite medleys: onion, fennel seed, garlic, red bell pepper, corn, broccoli, lots of fresh basil, and tofu of course (also works well sans tofu, or with chickpeas or lentils). A couple wedges of orange to cleanse the palette at the end.

I had intended to go for a swim this morning, but when I woke up at 6:30am (a sleep-in for me) I felt the morning already escaping, and my tummy already rumbling. So I opted for a walk around the farm. I've been wearing a support bandage around my knee (called a "tubigrip"). It helps considerably but I'm trying to ween myself off of it so kept it off this morning. The walk was significantly more difficult. But I got through it and no harm done (hopefully a bit of good, instead).

I wore the tubigrip on a post-lunch walk this afternoon in the glorious hot sun. You will never hear me complaining that it's too hot in England. I'll take it every chance I can get.

Today was not caffeine free, but it's my third day in a row without booze - a minor miracle these days it seems. I'm feeling good, that I can't deny I felt a strong craving for a cold glass of white wine this evening - something to wash down the end of a long, sunny day. But all in good time. The week needs to be about getting stuff done, building my businesses, being focused, energised, creative. I'm not so fussy about the weekend, but even then, it's still about making choices that make me feel as good as possible. 

There's a time and a place for cold glasses of white wine, a time and a place for swimming, a time and a place for writing... and on and on. The only universal thing for which there's always a time and place is kicking ass and taking names. Onwards towards tomorrow.

Breakfast: Muesli, yogurt, banana, raspberries, blueberries, oolong tea

Snack 1:Sourdough walnut and raisin toast from Thoughtful Bread, served with butter and coffee

Snack 2: Fruit smoothie with frozen berries and raw milk

Snack: 3 Spinach malfetti with herb, lemon and pinenut sauce

Late Lunch: Pumpkin walnut and feta salad with wild herb and edible flower salad; stuffed field mushrooms with parsley pistou, roasted pink fir potatoes with harissa; courgette fritters with raw salsa cruda; rhubarb cheesecake.

Light Dinner: Farinata, leftover pumpkin salad, lots of rocket.

A fairly awesome day of food on Sunday. I spent the morning and afternoon on a food outing / cooking course at Rachel Demuths' Vegetarian Cookery School in Bath. We started at Castle Farm Organic Produce where we picked loads of beautiful fruit and veg like swiss chard, mizuna, horseradish, pink fir potatoes, a massive pumpkin, loads of salad leaves, parsley, lovage, borage, sage, thyme, mint, raspberries, plums... then we took the lot back to the cookery school and spent the day cooking at eating, hence the large quantity of snacks today. The highlight for me was the refreshing raw salsa cruda, made with tomatoillos, tomatoes, chillies, spring onions,coriander, lemon juice and a dash of apple juice concentrate (amazing what a little sweetness does for a salsa). We had our late lunch at around 4pm. I didn't think I'd be hungry for dinner but by 8pm I felt a tad peckish so had a bit of farinata, leftover pumpkin salad (both scores from the cookery school), followed by fruit and yogurt.  In retrospect, I wish I had given the yogurt/fruit a pass. I was really looking forward to going to bed on a not full stomach for a change, and the yogurt pushed me over the edge. Oh well. This is how we learn!

Oh, I got my walk in first thing in the morning before class. And did a fair bit of gardening when I got home from Bath.